@SirCalalot: I'm using alpha planes for the rain. It's a little frustrating because the rain appears much more apparent and heavy in motion; I'm just going to have to get heavy handed with it and make it very obvious. As far as Epic's way of doing this, yeah, I actually had taken a look at their Night and Day scene and figured out how they did it, which is exactly like you mention. I would love to do that but I don't know how they manage to turn the rain cylinders on and off based on where the camera is in the scene. Very cool though.
@scotthomer: Hey thanks man, I love your Bioshock scene.
It's the clock face that will sit above the train station. Hopefully it doesn't look too art deco. I kind of toyed with putting clock gears behind the filigree, but I didn't want to fall into the "put some gears on it and call it steampunk" trap. Also it might be too busy or not even visible, what do you guys think?
Nah but seriously I think it could use some time indicators, typically clocktowers use roman numerals but I think any marker would work at hour 12/3/6/9. At the moment you have a lot of small scale repetition of details. Especially in the interior.
Yea I'm adding roman numerals in photoshop, I didn't want to bother modeling them out. As for the rivets, their job is to sell the scale since it's rather large, so they're intentionally small and numerous.
This is looking really good and you've done so much since last class. Here are a few suggestions that mostly involve the back building. I think doing a series of alpha gears will help add a lot of perceived complexity to the scene. Adding in additional arches and supports under the bridge and walkway will help get rid of those pesky strait edges.
Also there seams to be quite a bit of scale inconsistencies. For instance you have at least 2 different sizes for the lamps and it ends up throwing everything off slightly. The smaller you make objects that we identify with on a day to day basis the more epic everything else will seem. Right now some of the set dressing ends up dwarfing the buildings and making them seem cartoonish.
Overall easy fixes and I'm really excited to see this bad boy finished... Your getting so close
Awesome crit, Jason, thanks a bunch. The larger lamps had been bugging me, I'll definitely change that. I'll probably also push that steampunk silhouette -- I had intended to go for it before but I got an earlier crit saying it was looking too industrial. I think the better choice is to just go for it and push the contrasting elements.
I also happen to have a vehicle in the works that will looks awesome once it's in. And ropes, definitely lots of ropes.
Thanks again!
Here is the paintover posted above, I think the link broke so here it is:
For the floral design, how did you approach that? I'm seeing this a lot lately, and am wondering which approach others are taking towards creating the high poly floral designs.
Are you sculpting them straight in zbrush, or using other methods as well?
Tor Frick has an amazing thread that has a ton of it and I definitely used his work for inspiration. I did it all in Maya, it just takes some practice with sub-d modeling to get the clean curves, after that it's a lot of copy pasta, which makes it quicker than you'd think. I've got intersecting meshes everywhere and all the leaves are copied and floated above the geometry. For me personally I wouldn't use zbrush for this, it would take way longer and get a bit messy.
Hey guys, I'm having trouble getting decals to light properly and I can't find a solution.
So the newspapers on the right are the decals. They don't show the normal map or specular accurately and the lighting is incorrect. The newspaper on the left is the same material applied to a static mesh plane and looks correct. I don't know what's wrong; they are decal materials and not regular materials, as they should be. The blend mode is set to masked with phong shading. Is there some other setting I'm missing? Thanks.
Alright I have determined that the decals appear incorrect when applied to lightmapped surfaces, but any surface that is dynamically lit will display the decal correctly.
Edit: Resolved, it was because the meshes I was projecting on did not have the dynamic light channel enabled.
Tor Frick has an amazing thread that has a ton of it and I definitely used his work for inspiration. I did it all in Maya, it just takes some practice with sub-d modeling to get the clean curves, after that it's a lot of copy pasta, which makes it quicker than you'd think. I've got intersecting meshes everywhere and all the leaves are copied and floated above the geometry. For me personally I wouldn't use zbrush for this, it would take way longer and get a bit messy.
Excellent! I asked Tor how he did it in that thread, actually, but the guy is way too busy and I don't think he saw my post >D. Thank you for the clarification man! I'm dying to try this for myself.
Hey guys, school has officially started for me and with that comes other responsibilities, unfortunately. Regardless, I am valiantly trying to finish this up in the next two weeks before my schedule gets too crazy. Here's a small update to show where things are generally going:
I do feel it's coming together, which is a great feeling. The next update will be the cars -- they're almost ready. Thanks for the encouraging comments guys.
@SirCalalot: I really want to try Modo whenever I get the chance. I work just fine in Maya, but it must be so nice using software that was built for modeling from the ground up. Though I'm curious how many studios would be likely to have Modo installed at this point.
You should balance the shininess of things around the scene, even though most things are wet they will still reflect differently, and also the rain won't hit everything. I'm thinking particularly about the stone walls of the buildings. You could use contrast of smooth vs rough to emphasise focal points even.
daaamn. when this scene was in earlier stages i wasn't sure if you would be able to nail the mood of concept and recreate all those details. But now i have no doubts, it looks totally awesome.
i'm not sure about posters though. they seem to be placed too high for people to be able to read them, it would take really tall ladders to stick them, and also they feel too ordinary for such fancy balcony/tubes.
Thanks guys I'm glad you like it and I'm definitely keeping your crits in mind.
I just wanted to post saying the scene is still alive, but summer ended, school started, and I got an awesome internship. Needless to say I haven't had a lot of time, but very soon I'll be back to wrapping this thing up.
Hey guys it's been a while. Here is a quick scene I did for school:
And here is what I started working on last week:
I'm doing a Darksiders homage over the break, I'll see where it takes me. I'm following the concepts Jonathon Kirtz has over at cghub. I really like the style and the sculpting workflow, so it's been fun to explore.
I'll get back to working on the city eventually, but right now I'm getting a bit more breadth in my portfolio with other projects. Gotta follow what's most exciting to work on at the moment, right?
With the jungle piece though, I'm not sure its style comes across clearly enough.
I can't tell if it's supposed to be realistic or stylised, and I think that's in part due to the amount of detail in the textures. In particular, the tree bark and statue diffuse have a lot more fine noise over them, not matching with the more stylised bricks.
Apart from that nitpick, it's all gravy!
Can't wait to see more!
Hey thanks guys . I'll probably get around to some sort of mini tutorial at some point, but really you should just look at Orb's site: http://orbart.free.fr/index.php?Gallery=105. He has fantastic style and he gives a ton of workflow insights.
I was wondering if you could give feedback on the scene I'm working on. The thread will be live soon, but I can also show you the progress IRL later today!
I'm surprised no one commented on your update. You did a great job implementing your paintover into udk. It looks alot better man. This piece sure has come a long way, and it looks really badass!
Did more polish and have a few more shots to show you guys. I'm deciding whether I should push the polish further and spend even more time on this scene or get back to working on my Darksiders stuff. Either way GDC is next week and graduation is next month, so things will be busy .
Replies
@scotthomer: Hey thanks man, I love your Bioshock scene.
It's the clock face that will sit above the train station. Hopefully it doesn't look too art deco. I kind of toyed with putting clock gears behind the filigree, but I didn't want to fall into the "put some gears on it and call it steampunk" trap. Also it might be too busy or not even visible, what do you guys think?
Nah but seriously I think it could use some time indicators, typically clocktowers use roman numerals but I think any marker would work at hour 12/3/6/9. At the moment you have a lot of small scale repetition of details. Especially in the interior.
This is looking really good and you've done so much since last class. Here are a few suggestions that mostly involve the back building. I think doing a series of alpha gears will help add a lot of perceived complexity to the scene. Adding in additional arches and supports under the bridge and walkway will help get rid of those pesky strait edges.
Also there seams to be quite a bit of scale inconsistencies. For instance you have at least 2 different sizes for the lamps and it ends up throwing everything off slightly. The smaller you make objects that we identify with on a day to day basis the more epic everything else will seem. Right now some of the set dressing ends up dwarfing the buildings and making them seem cartoonish.
Overall easy fixes and I'm really excited to see this bad boy finished... Your getting so close
good luck,
Stokes
I also happen to have a vehicle in the works that will looks awesome once it's in. And ropes, definitely lots of ropes.
Thanks again!
Here is the paintover posted above, I think the link broke so here it is:
For the floral design, how did you approach that? I'm seeing this a lot lately, and am wondering which approach others are taking towards creating the high poly floral designs.
Are you sculpting them straight in zbrush, or using other methods as well?
http://marcthompsonblog.tumblr.com/ is my blog/portfolio. Once I get this scene done I'll be making a proper site for myself.
So the newspapers on the right are the decals. They don't show the normal map or specular accurately and the lighting is incorrect. The newspaper on the left is the same material applied to a static mesh plane and looks correct. I don't know what's wrong; they are decal materials and not regular materials, as they should be. The blend mode is set to masked with phong shading. Is there some other setting I'm missing? Thanks.
Edit: Resolved, it was because the meshes I was projecting on did not have the dynamic light channel enabled.
Excellent! I asked Tor how he did it in that thread, actually, but the guy is way too busy and I don't think he saw my post >D. Thank you for the clarification man! I'm dying to try this for myself.
I do feel it's coming together, which is a great feeling. The next update will be the cars -- they're almost ready. Thanks for the encouraging comments guys.
@SirCalalot: I really want to try Modo whenever I get the chance. I work just fine in Maya, but it must be so nice using software that was built for modeling from the ground up. Though I'm curious how many studios would be likely to have Modo installed at this point.
Even in it's unfinished state the scene is impressive.
With regards to learning Modo - I'd say go for it!
There is nothing stopping you from going back to Maya if a future job requires it of you
i'm not sure about posters though. they seem to be placed too high for people to be able to read them, it would take really tall ladders to stick them, and also they feel too ordinary for such fancy balcony/tubes.
I just wanted to post saying the scene is still alive, but summer ended, school started, and I got an awesome internship. Needless to say I haven't had a lot of time, but very soon I'll be back to wrapping this thing up.
While it is set in a different time period, I thought it may help you to get another perspective on the space which he was concepting
How's this coming along anyway?
Edit: Here is the original one that @Marchwarden used so you can compare:
And here is what I started working on last week:
I'm doing a Darksiders homage over the break, I'll see where it takes me. I'm following the concepts Jonathon Kirtz has over at cghub. I really like the style and the sculpting workflow, so it's been fun to explore.
I'll get back to working on the city eventually, but right now I'm getting a bit more breadth in my portfolio with other projects. Gotta follow what's most exciting to work on at the moment, right?
With the jungle piece though, I'm not sure its style comes across clearly enough.
I can't tell if it's supposed to be realistic or stylised, and I think that's in part due to the amount of detail in the textures. In particular, the tree bark and statue diffuse have a lot more fine noise over them, not matching with the more stylised bricks.
Apart from that nitpick, it's all gravy!
Can't wait to see more!
Anyway here is a quick update, I made a floor:
keep it up!
looks great!
Expect a ton more here in the next few weeks!
Here's what it looked like before, for comparison: